Prominent in Utah history is the story of the early pioneers being saved from starvation by great flocks of seagulls seven hundred miles from the ocean. Their first crop was being utterly destroyed by vast hoards of what have since been called Mormon crickets. It was beyond the capability of the pioneers to stop the devastation. The story was brought home to me forcibly when I was a little boy and my father was a stake president for 20 years. He would call me in to meet visitors of particular interest. I clearly remember meeting a man who witnessed the actual event with the seagulls in his childhood. His parents drove their buckboard the many miles out to the Great Salt Lake to see great heaps of dead crickets that had been thrown up by the seagulls, who would then fly back to the fields and devour another batch of crickets. This was repeated until the plague was eliminated. Since then seagulls have been protected and honored in the state of Utah.
About Me
- George Richards Cannon
- My early postings were intended to be in sequence, starting with “Why This Blog” posted on December 3, 2011. After reading this profile, you might want to start your reading with those early entries. I am a 93 year old husband, dad, grandpa and great grandpa. I've seen a lot of changes in the world. When I was young, vegetables were still delivered by horse and wagon. As a radio operator during World War II, I communicated via morse code. Now I use my voice-activated cell phone to stay in touch. My career as a university professor of computer science spanned the time when a single computer took up several rooms of in a computer center and was less powerful than today's $2 calculators to the present time where computers are an ever-present part of our daily life. I am now legally blind, but even there technology has come to the rescue. My computer monitor is a big flat screen T.V. with large print magnification. I type by touch with very limited ability to see and edit what I write, so either someone else will have to edit my writing or you will have to endure all the typos. I look forward to sharing my thoughts, perspectives, and memories on life.
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